Mt. Ontake (Otaki Village, Nagano Prefecture)

　Mt. Ontake, which has an altitude of 3,067 m, has been revered as a sacred mountain since ancient times.

　Like Mt. Fuji, Mt. Ontake is an object of mountain worship, and is still used as a training ground for Shugenjia (Ascetics). At the foot of the mountain, more than 20,000 monuments as Reijinhi (Ascetic's Monuments) have been erected.

　Mountain worship is a religious concept that regards mountains as sacred from the perspective of nature worship.

　It is a primitive religious philosophy that began in the Jomon period (B.C. 13th to B.C. 3th), revering mountainous regions as symbols of blessings and as a home of gods spirits and evil spirits.

A group of Ascetic's Monuments

　It is said that the mountain worship of Mt. Ontake was established in Taiho 2th (702) by Enno Ozunu, who was a psychic from Asuka period (About 7th).

　Since then, only a limited number of people have been able to climb the mountain, as only some member of samurai class who have completed a 100-day purification are allowed to climb the mountain.

　Later, in the mid-Edo period (About 16th), the mountain was opened to common people using Otaki village as the starting point for climbing, and as a result Ontake faith which worshiped Mt. Ontake quickly spread throughout Japan.

　At the third station from Satomiya shrine at the foot of the mountain, there is Kiyotaki Falls and Shintaki Falls, which are about 30 m high and they are a place to waterfall training before climbing.

　In winter, icicles form on these waterfalls, creating a mysterious atmosphere.

Icicles at Kiyotaki Falls

　If you go about 8 km west of here along a mountain road, you will find a lake called "Sizenko (Natural Lake)."

　This lake was created when Otaki River was dammed during 1984 for Western Nagano Prefecture Earthquake, and which was not formed naturally over many years.

　As a result, the trees that were growing at that time remain, creating a unique landscape with their trunks standing on the surface of the lake.

　The Kiso country where Mt. Ontake is located, it is hometown of Kiso Yoshinaka, who is a hero of Genpei war (About late 10th century).

　Together with his wife a female warrior as Tomoe Gozen, she ran around battlefields of late Heian period and achieved great feats of war driving Heike clan back to western part of Japan.

　However, in first year of Genryaku (1184), due to an internal conflict within Genji clan when he confronted his ally the Genji clan, and he was killed in battle at Awazu (Otsu City, Shiga Prefecture).